Ft. Collins, Co September 2020

I feel the need to post something for 2020 even though we haven't been able to travel much including overseas because of the Covid-19 virus.  We did drive to Colorado to visit Julia and Ryan.  Here is the bird picture  I got while hiking around Arapaho Bend Natural Area. 

This is an American White Pelican.  The American white pelican is a large aquatic soaring bird from the order Pelecaniformes. It breeds in interior North America, moving south and to the coasts, as far as Central America and South America, in winter.  At first I couldn't believe this was a pelican because I was expecting a big pouch extending , from its bill.  The trip was so relaxing.  It's the first time I had been away from home since taking care of my parents.  We played Bean Bag Toss and Crochet, as well as board and card games, and watched some movies. Julia is such a good hostess making sure we always have something to do.  Kenny helped her make bread and Ken went on walks with her.   

South Africa

 

Lilac Breast Roller

It has been five months since returning from our South Africa and Swaziland OAT trip.  We saw so many incredible birds, and here is just a sampling.  We saw this colorful creature on August 17th at Kruger National Park.  I couldn't believe it stayed still along enough for me to snap a photo, although the national bird of Zimbabwe, it was not as close as I would have liked it to be.  Most of the information about these birds came from Wikipedia. Here is some information :

Prefers open woodland and savanna, it perches conspicuously at the tops of trees. The sexes are alike in coloration, and juveniles lack the long tail streamers of adults. Rollers get their name from their impressive courtship flight, a fast, shallow dive from considerable elevation with a rolling or fast rocking motion, accompanied by loud raucous calls.

Brown Hooded Kingfisher

The brown-hooded kingfisher is a species of bird in the subfamily Halcyoninae, the tree kingfishers. It has a brown head and blackish and turquoise wings. It is found in Sub-Saharan Africa, living in woodland, scrubland, forest edges, and also suburban areas.It usually forages on the ground, mainly feeding on insects, and also eating scorpions, reptiles, small birds, rodents and fishes.^{[6]I took this picture August 22nd at the Hluhluwe –Imfolozi Park, formerly Hluhluwe–Umfolozi Game Reserve, is the oldest proclaimed nature reserve in Africa.}

Hadeda Ibis

This was taken on August 27th at Tsitsikama, and they are named because of its loud three to four note calls uttered in flight especially in the mornings and evenings when they fly out or return to their roost trees. Hadada have become very common in many African cities and tolerate the closeness of humans.^[13] They are able to judge the direction of gaze of humans and the speed of approach to decide their escape strategies.^[14] Hadada ibises have been involved in several bird-hits at airports in Kenya and South Africa.^[15][16]The Bantu people of Uganda have an origin story where a man and wife starved themselves during a drought while letting their children eat whatever little they had. The man and his wife were then turned into ibises that go by the name of Mpabaana.^[21]

African Penguin

The African penguin, also known as the jackass penguin and black-footed penguin, is a species of penguin, confined to southern African waters. August 28th is when this photo was taken at Boulder Beach near Simon's Town and Cape Town in South Africa.  The pink gland above their eyes helps them to cope with changing temperatures.African penguins have a very recognizable appearance with a thick band of black that is in the shape of an upside-down horseshoe.When foraging, African penguins carry out dives that on average reach a depth of 25 m and last for 69 s, although a maximum depth of 130 m and duration of 275 s has been recorded.^{[20] These two are helping each other spruce up their nest.  We also visited the SANCCOB Seabird Center where baby chicks are rescued and cared for.}

African Skimmer

 This picture was taken on August 31st in Chobe National Park.  The African skimmer (Rynchops flavirostris) is a near-threatened species of bird. Their bill structure is unique; the lower mandible is much longer than the upper mandible, and is flattened sideways like scissor blades.^[2]African skimmers are partial intra-African migrants, they arrive in southern Africa when the water level of rivers starts falling at the beginning of the dry season, i.e. April–June, returning northwards after breeding when rivers start rising again at the start of the rainy season in November–January.^[3]

African Fish Eagle - Finally the last bird is the national bird of Zimbabwe which is why I chose this one.  I shot this photo on August 22nd at Hluhluwe.  This species may resemble the bald eagle in appearance; though related, each species occurs on different continents, with the bald eagle being resident in North America. Pairs often maintain two or more nests, which they frequently reuse. Because nests are reused and built upon over the years, they can grow quite large, some reaching 2 m (6.0 ft) across and 1.2 m (3.9 ft) deep.Should the African fish eagle catch prey over ten times their own body weight, it is too heavy to allow the eagle to get lift, so it instead drags the fish across the surface of the water until it reaches the shore. If it catches a fish too heavy to allow the eagle to sustain flight, it will drop into the water and paddle to the nearest shore with its wings.

Three Brothers Rediscover Each Other

On May 9th, Ken and I finally got to travel together with his other two brothers and their wives. We had been working on putting a trip together for a few years.  Now that everyone is retired except Joan, we were able to make it happen, after setting it up almost one year ago.  We all had our concerns and expectations - James, would it keep his interest, Mark, how he would interact with the whole group, Ken, would the rest of the family enjoy themselves after promoting OAT for over ten years.  Well...expectations met!

 

The clay-colored thrush is a common Middle American bird of the thrush family. It is the national bird of Costa Rica, where it is well known as the yigüirro. Other common names include clay-colored robin.  It is not a very prepossessing bird, being mainly dull brown over the upper parts, becoming paler brown below, with a whitish throat streaked darker, and pinkish legs, and a slightly yellow bill.

• It will follow army ants to feed on small prey disturbed by the ant columns.
• With their springtime songs, Clay-colored Thrush are said to call in the rains at the start of Costa Rica's rainy season which begins in May.ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clay-colored_thrush
  

So, the three ladies also had a great time rediscovering each other.  On the chocolate tour, we found that we all had quite a fondness for chocolate (among other things) and learned how to make a very nice hot chocolate drink for breakfast.  Thank you Cheri!  How lucky am I to have such great sisters-in-law. 

The slatey-tailed trogon is a resident of the canopy and higher levels of damp tropical forests, but comes lower in adjacent semi-open areas. It nests 3 to 15 m (9.8 to 49.2 ft) high in an occupied termite nest or decaying tree trunk, with a typical clutch of three white or bluish-white eggs laid in a chamber reached by an ascending tunnel. Both sexes excavate the nesting chamber.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slaty-tailed_trogon

 Here we are at the beginning of our travels getting to know the real people of San Jose, Costa Rica.  This lady is a prostitute who was kind enough to share her experiences of daily life routines and struggles to make ends meet.  Prostitution is legal is Costa Rica so they do not have to worry about pimps and they get medical checkups.  However, this woman does seem to have a drug addiction. I have to say I never saw the brothers "checking out" the lady. 😵😍We learned a little about the history of the city and the country.  There is no military force, and San Jose has a beautiful National Theater built in the 1800's resembling buildings in Europe.

The boat-billed heron, colloquially known as the boatbill, is an atypical member of the heron family. 
Boat-billed herons feed on shrimp and small fish such as Dormitator latifrons, a species of sleeper goby.^[5][7] They tend to forage in vegetative streams, shallow water, and lagoons. When foraging in streams they will use low hanging branches and mangrove roots to stand over the water. In ponds they will walk slowly through the water up to 10 cm deep or will forage near the water’s edge.^[5] In order to capture prey they will lunge at fish or scoop the surface of the water with their bills which are uniquely shaped for this method of capture.^[5] Additionally, they have been observed using two different feeding techniques; standing and slowly stalking prey, or disturbing the water and chasing prey.^[7] Boat-billed herons will forage nocturnally, and have been seen leaving the roost 30 minutes after sundown to feed. It has been observed that they do not feed when a light source is present such as daylight, moonlight, or artificial light.^[6][5] One study hypothesized that in order to forage for food in the dark and in shallow, muddy water, their bills are sensitive to touch which helps them feel for their prey.From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

We next visited a coffee farm and flower farm.  We were treated to the produce which was all organically grown.  Ken and I celebrated our 45th anniversary while we learned about pineapple, how to grow them, and how to to select one at the grocery store.  The fellows loved sampling all of the various ways pineapple is used in food and all three have a healthy appetite.  After the farms, we got more active rafting down the Sarapiqui almost running into a spider web and working hard to stay in the boat.  

The groove-billed ani is an odd-looking tropical bird in the cuckoo family with a long tail and a large, curved beak.  Like other anis, the Groove-billed Ani lives in small groups of one to five breeding pairs. They defend a single territory and lay their eggs in one communal nest. All group members incubate the eggs and care for the young.
https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Groove-billed_Ani/overview

We visited families to learn what life is like for Costa Rican people and found that traveling together like we are doing is exactly what families in Costa Rica do.  Our trip leader told us a great story about what it is like to go to the beach with a Costa Rican family.  They often live together in extended families and are very considerate and helpful to each other.  Family first!  Ken, James, and Mark are a good example of how family support each other. I never hear them say a negative thing about each other or even other people.  They always offered to help anyone in our group who needed it.  It's the same at home, they always step up to support their nieces and nephews.  I feel very fortunate to be apart of this family.

The black vulture, also known as the American black vulture, is a bird in the New World vulture family whose range extends from the southeastern United States to Central Chile and Uruguay in South America.  Wikipedia
Black Vultures are large raptors. In flight, they hold their broad, rounded wings flat and angled slightly forward. The tail is very short and rounded. They have small, bare heads and narrow but strongly hooked bills.

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Black_Vulture

We got to hang out together participating in fun activities like rafting, swimming, picnicking, horseback riding, and hiking to waterfalls.  We got to talk, share viewpoints, ideas, and dreams.  We broke bread together, looked after each other's needs, and reveled in our discoveries.  What more can three brothers (and their wives) ask for.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Salt Flat Flamingos

I returned from another adventure that took me to The Italian and French Rivieras.  I got an unexpected surprise while traveling from San Marino to Bologna.  We stopped in a seaside town called Cervia where there is a salt flat.  The salt here is used at the Vatican and is known as the "Pope's Salt".  It is considered a sweet salt, not because it is sweet, but because it lacks a bitterness that other salts posses.  As we were getting a talk on how they produce this special salt, I noticed some flamingos coming in for a landing in the distance.  I walked quickly down the dirt walkway to get as close as I could without scaring them off in order to get a few shots.  I like the way the birds reflect in the water.

Flamingos usually stand on one leg while the other is tucked beneath their body. The reason for this behaviour is not fully understood. One theory is that standing on one leg allows the birds to conserve more body heat, given that they spend a significant amount of time wading in cold water.^[17] However, the behaviour also takes place in warm water and is also observed in birds that do not typically stand in water. An alternative theory is that standing on one leg reduces the energy expenditure for producing muscular effort to stand and balance on one leg. A study on cadavers showed that the one-legged pose could be held without any muscle activity, while living flamingos demonstrate substantially less body sway in a one-legged posture.^[18] As well as standing in the water, flamingos may stamp their webbed feet in the mud to stir up food from the bottom.^[19]
Flamingos are capable flyers and flamingos in captivity often require wing clipping to prevent escape.Young flamingos hatch with greyish reddish plumage, but adults range from light pink to bright red due to aqueous bacteria and beta-Carotene obtained from their food supply. A well-fed, healthy flamingo is more vibrantly colored and thus a more desirable mate; a white or pale flamingo, however, is usually unhealthy or malnourished. Captive flamingos are a notable exception; they may turn a pale pink if they are not fed carotene at levels comparable to the wild

Ireland/England Birds 2017

I want to share the pictures of the birds I saw while traveling in Ireland and England.  I'm sure they are nothing special, but I like all birds and like keeping a record of what I see while I am out and about.  Ken and I took this adventure with my high school friend and her husband in April, and really enjoyed the trip and their companionship.  It started off a bit rocky as far as the flight connections were concerned, but all worked out in the end.  Our flight from SFO to London Heathrow was delayed 3 1/2 hours because of a loose screw.  This made our connecting flight to Dublin precarious because of having to go through customs and security, but we made it.  It was probably because I was wearing my lucky earrings and necklace!

This was taken in York on April 20th.  I had three weird dreams the night before.  One was that my friend Kristin was pregnant.  I will have to ask her what that means since she belongs to a dream group.  We spent the day walking around the museum park near our hotel and walking over to the Railroad Museum across the river.  This is a wood pigeon.  S/he looks very pleased with the find probably for a nest.  Here is some information on wood pigeons.
The common wood pigeon (Columba palumbus) is a large species in the dove and pigeon family.  . It is locally known in southeast England as the "culver".   The common wood pigeon is gregarious, often forming very large flocks outside the breeding season. Like many species of pigeon, wood pigeons take advantage of trees and buildings to gain a vantage point over the surrounding area, and their distinctive call means that they are usually heard before they are seen.  Young common wood pigeons swiftly become fat, as a result of the crop milk they are fed by their parents. This is an extremely rich, sweet fluid that is produced in the adult birds' crops during the breeding season.

This is a coot, and this picture was taken on April 28th.  As usual we arose at 7:30 am and met Marty and Marsha at 8:30 am for breakfast.  This was our last day in London before flying home.  We were all getting a little tired and anxious to return, and get back to a daily routine.  We wandered around London visiting famous sights.  We took advantage of the Underground to get to the various places.  The palaces and parks were beautiful.  Spring was a perfect time to visit.  This bird was hanging out at Kensington Palace and Gardens.  The feet really are quite unique.
An aquatic bird of the rail family, with blackish plumage, lobed feet, and a bill that extends back onto the forehead as a horny shield.OR

a foolish or eccentric person, typically an old man.  Ha,ha - I wonder which it is.  

Coots have prominent frontal shields or other decoration on the forehead, with red to dark red eyes and coloured bills. Many, but not all, have white on the under tail. The featherless shield gave rise to the expression "as bald as a coot," which the Oxford English Dictionary cites in use as early as 1430. Like other rails, they have long, lobed toes that are well adapted to soft, uneven surfaces. Coots have strong legs and can walk and run vigorously. They tend to have short, rounded wings and are weak fliers, though northern species nevertheless can cover long distances. Ah! mystery solved.

Coots are omnivorous, eating mainly plant material, but also small animals and eggs. They are aggressively territorial during the breeding season, but are otherwise often found in sizeable flocks on the shallow vegetated lakes they prefer.

Here is a magpie.  We saw these birds in both Ireland and England.  They really have gorgeous coloring.  I snapped this photo on April 10th while we were staying in Dublin.  Leaving the hotel around 9:00 am that morning, we all walked over to Trinity College and bought the tour of the campus and library.  Our guide was a student, and he had many interesting stories about the campus and some of the people who had attended. . Tim Westoll 1919–1999 Ornithologist I think is one good person to mention since the focus here is on birds.  A. A. Milne 1882–1956 Writer – Winnie-the-Pooh is another.  Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson 1809–1892 Poet – Maud, In Memoriam Sir Isaac Newton 1642–1727 Mathematician, physicist; MP (Cambridge University) Sir Francis Bacon 1561–1626 Lawyer, philosopher; Lord Chancellor all attended Trinity College.  We had to queue up to see The Books of Kells which is an illuminated manuscript of the four gospels.  Afterwards, we headed over to the Long Library.  There the books are organized from the biggest at the bottom to the smallest at the top.  How could you ever find the book you need?! By this time, we were ready for a break.  We found a very nice cafe - Costa Cafe which I figured out is a chain like Starbucks.  Anyway, we powered up with hot chocolate and coffee heading back out on our personal walking tour.  We spotted Molly Malone who was famous for her "night business".  We also discovered the statue of Oscar Wilde at the corner of a park with a children's playground.  We then ventured over and across the Liffey River, checked out the harp bridge (The harp is the national symbol of Ireland.), and discovered a memorial for the people who left Ireland due to the potato famine.  That was enough for one day.  It was time to find our way back to our hotel for a rest and dinner.
Magpies - one of the most intelligent animals in the world - With its noisy chattering, black-and-white plumage and long tail, there is nothing else quite like the magpie in the UK. When seen close-up its black plumage takes on an altogether more colourful hue with a purplish-blue iridescent sheen to the wing feathers, and a green gloss to the tail. Magpies seem to be jacks of all trades - scavengers, predators and pest-destroyers, their challenging, almost arrogant attitude has won them few friends. Non-breeding birds will gather together in flocks.
https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wildlife/bird-and-wildlife-guides/bird-a-z/m/magpie/
The information on the first two birds came from Wikipedia

 

Japan Birds

I have been away from this for a long time.  I am newly motivated because a couple of people viewed my blog.  I traveled to Japan with OAT over the summer, and just finished making a slide show of my trip, so there is no good reason I can think of not to post the birds I saw there.  So, here they are:

 This picture was taken at Kenrokuen Gardens on a hot day in July as we walked over bridges and around ponds.

 Heron at Sanjusangendo Temple captured by my camera a few days later.

 This heron was waiting to say good-bye as we parted on a ferry from Ikuchijima Island.
 Here is some information on herons:

The grey heron (Ardea cinerea) is a long-legged predatory wading bird of the heron family, Ardeidae, native throughout temperate Europe and Asia and also parts of Africa. It is resident in much of its range, but some populations from the more northern parts migrate southwards in autumn. A bird of wetland areas, it can be seen around lakes, rivers, ponds, marshes and on the sea coast. It feeds mostly on aquatic creatures which it catches after standing stationary beside or in the water or stalking its prey through the shallows.The birds breed colonially in spring in "heronries", usually building their nests high in trees. A clutch of usually three to five bluish-green eggs is laid. Both birds incubate the eggs for a period of about 25 days, and then both feed the chicks, which fledge when seven or eight weeks old. Many juveniles do not survive their first winter, but if they do, they can expect to live for about five years.(This formation came from Wikipedia)

This picture of two cormorants I took along the Katsura River as we got ready to take a boat up the river and a hike up a mountain to visit the Zen monk Obayashi san for macha tea ceremony.

The Japanese cormorant, also known as Temminck's cormorant, is a cormorant native to East Asia. It lives from Taiwan north through Korea and Japan to the Russian Far East. Wikipedia

 

What is a Cormorant or a Darter?

Pity the poor cormorant. There’s scarcely a bird in the world as unfairly maligned, deemed the world over as a bad seed due to its ungainly proportions and reportedly insatiable appetite for bait fish.  But this awkward family is of an ancient lineage, one of the oldest of all the birds and with similar ancestors reaching all the way back to the dinosaurs.  The form is a classic one – long-billed, web-footed, and waterborne – and shared in some sense with the order of birds the cormorants, and their sister taxa the darters, lie within, the newly resurrected Suliformes.  That group consists of the two families treated here, along with the boobies, frigatebirds, and tropicbirds, all highly aerial marine species.  The comparatively aquatic and frequently freshwater cormorants and darters are outliers, both in habitat preferences and panache, but we’re all about the underdogs here.  Let’s take the two families together, and then separately.

Both cormorant and darters are superb swimmers, specializing in pursuing fish underwater before returning to the surface where they sit, characteristically quite low in the water, and swallow them head-first.  Both families use their feet for propulsion, and as such those appendages are uniquely webbed across all four toes, effectively broadening the surface area they use to propel themselves.  It’s a trait they share with the other Sulids, as well as the pelicans.

Cormorants and darters are long-bodied and that, paired with feet at the far end of their bodies, makes them awkward when out of the water.  Though powerful flyers, they’re rather ungainly when taking off from the surface, but it’s on land that we see that most famous of cormorant behaviors.   Sitting atop a cliff face or piece of flotsam following a fishing outing, they’ll spread their wings wide to dry.   It’s suggested that this is because they lack the oils found in other birds to waterproof their feathers, but that’s not true.  Waterproofing is an innate characteristic of feathers due to their physical structure.  No extra oil is required.  But both cormorants and, in particular, darters are unique in having feathers that are less naturally water-resistant than other birds, an adaptation that enables them to forage underwater more easily.  However, this necessitates regular time out of the water to dry sodden feathers and regulate body temperature; the time spent in that classic crucificial position.

March Madness

We have had tons of birds in the yard and at the feeders.

Mourning Dove

White Crown Sparrow

Common Rosefinch

These are some of the birds I captured.  There was also a jay, but it was too allusive.  Sometimes the birds fight over the seeds and fly over to the flower pots for a drink of water. 

• First-year birds tend to disperse further than adults which explains why colonizing birds are almost always dull-plumaged (young) males.
• A group of rosefinches are collectively known as a "bouquet" of finches.
• Maybe this is a house finch.  It's hard to tell the difference, except for their location.
• House finches are natives of the American West, but were introduced in New York City in the 1940's.  Since that time, eastern birds have spread throughout the eastern half of the country, while western populations have also expanded.  The House Finch, like the House Sparrow, is well adapted to living with humans and has taken advantage of their presence rather than suffering because of it.  Today the House Finch can be found throughout the country.  Both a male (left) and female (right) are depicted in the photos to the right.

• Bird Feeders: Sunflower seeds, thistle, and millet seeds.

   
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